The Elemental Experement
by mysticalfiction
Summary: SetAfterMR5. Max and the flock meet an interesting new character; Kyra. But just what is she? Why is Fang important? Max learns she's not the only special mutant out there, there are others with power she can't imagine.Ones bred to kill. i don't own Max.
1. Escaping

Have you ever noticed that things almost never turn out as planned? I mean really, one minute your happily walking along, and the next, you're jumped, knocked unconscious, and hauled off to who knows where only to wake up with the rest of the flock hovering over you.

Yeah, not what I'd wanted for the day.

It was then that I realized I was still lying on the floor, with no idea where we were.

"Max," Angel asked sweetly as I finally sat up, doing a head count and luckily, no one was missing. "How are we getting out of here?"

"That depends on where we are." I answered, looking around the room. It was small and windowless with but one door, that was of course bolted shut from the outside. No room for an easy escape. But then again, it was never easy for us.

"I have no idea, I wonder if it's day or night outside. Do you know Max? Because there's no windows here and I really don't like that, there's not even a clock here! How sad is that?" Nudge rambled on.

"My guess is Thailand." Fang said. "But I'm not positive on that." Yeah, just in case you aren't up in the story, he and I are together now, a fact that I was very very happy about. Of course, explaining it to the flock had been painfully awkward, but it was completely worth it, because Fang was mine now.

"Why on earth would we be in Thailand?" I asked nobody in particular.

"Because," The voice came from behind. "I would enjoy a demonstration of what you can do." all heads whipped around at the voice, ready to kick butt if necessary. Of course it was Mr. Shu standing smugly before us, the door was shut tightly though, making me wonder if he was really that quiet coming in.

"A demonstration of what?" I demanded.

"Of your intelligence, your fighting abilities, etc." he answered easily.

"And if we don't want to?" I challenged.

He shrugged uncaringly. "You die." My eyes widened only slightly. He really intended to kill us? What was the point of tracking us down and bringing us here? That had to be the stupidest thing I'd ever heard.

He snapped his fingers then. Immediately, he was surrounded by attentive, large, and skilled looking guards and, the door was open, perfect for escape. We should've left right then, but honestly, I had no idea what we were dealing with, or even how to get out of here.

"I'm ready for them." He said casually. The flock was ready to fight back, but, uneasily, I waved them down. Unfortunately, I needed to know what he really wanted and just how we'd mange to escape before we rushed to leave. I wasn't sure of this option though, it completely went against my nature. They all gave me wary looks, we weren't used to hanging around places like this, but they complied and we went without a fight.

"Take them in," Someone ordered as we stopped in the middle of a large hallway. "There almost finished with the one in there." There was someone else here? Who would get stuck here? Why would they get stuck here? I couldn't come up with an answer to that. The door before us was opened taking us into an office looking room. The entire side wall however, was made of that really thick glass you couldn't break through even if you drove a truck into it.  
"Ah, Max." someone said as we entered. "Take a seat there; we'll be with you shortly." He looked like a whitecoat. I think he might've been.

"Sorry," I snapped. "We don't feel like sitting."

He raised an eyebrow. "Then stand for all I care." He said uncaringly. That was new. Most people got mad about that.

Mr. Shu walked in professionally, nodding at us in acknowledgement. "This is the last test on the girl." He announced. "I want to try Max and her flock next."

The whitecoat nodded, pressing some button. In the room seen through the glass, a girl, around our age with long, dark brown hair was pushed out a door. She looked towards the window. Her eyes were dark and emotionless. She didn't look broken though; she looked closed off, like she'd been through too much to let anyone get to her again.

"This is the Tsunami Project?" Shu asked incredulously.

"Yup, she doesn't look like much, but she was far from a failed experiment from Itex."

Me and the flock shared a look. She was an experiment from Itex. The Tsunami Project or whatever. The only thing, was that she didn't look mutated. Most experiments we'd ever met were horribly disfigured. Actually, I thought, she looks a lot like us. She had the same lean body, she was tall. All she needed now was a pair of wings.

"What can she do?" Shu continued easily.

The whitecoat looked at the chart he had in his hands. "She's highly intelligent, the one who would strategize. And, like the other two, she knows how to use any weapon the second she holds it." He explained.

"What else?"

"Trust me, you'll see. This girl is like nothing I've ever seen." And with that, he said something quietly into a small microphone clipped to his jacket. That's when it happened.

There were no people in the room, but there were a whole hell of a lot of guns hooked into random places, ready to fire. The girl looked around, not even taking a stance. Then the guns fired. I braced myself for her to be hit and killed, only it never came.

Out of nowhere, a thick layer of ice now surrounded her, protecting her. I could still make her outline through it though. She finally moved. Her hand shot out, only two fingers showing. A needle like thing of ice shot straight at one of the guns, effectively destroying it. She kept it up, using both hands, shooting them quickly until no threats remained. The ice fell of its own accord, melting in puddles around her feet.

"Amazing." Mr. Shu said quietly.

"That's not all she can do, she has full control of the water, and of course, then there's the wings." He said.

"The wings are like the flock here, are they not?" He gestured to us.

"Yes, exactly so." The whitecoat answered. Mr. Shu just nodded. "Why didn't you try hand to hand with her?" he asked.

"We did."

"And? How were the results."

"Sir, she killed them all."

"Get her in here, it's Max's turn." I instantly froze up. I wouldn't so well against something like that. The girl was in the room seconds later, surrounded by more guards, completely unfazed.

"You did well, now tell me, what's your name?" Shu asked.

"The captor doesn't know his prisoner's name, I've no reason to tell it to you either." She answered smoothly.

He narrowed his eyes. "You will tell me, or I will make you tell me."

Silence.

"Answer me."

More silence.

"I will have you killed." He threatened.

"Pointless," She said. "Then you'll never know."

He growled audibly. "Tell. Me. Now."

She sighed. "Kyra." She finally answered.

"Good girl. Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show." And with that, he watched as me and the flock were being towed towards the door. I knew not running back then was a mistake.

"Oi," Kyra called.

"What?" Shu asked in irritation, not even sparring her a glance.

"Nothing important." She said as she reached for a strange looking pouch slung on her back. The bottom had the opening, and she flicked off the lid off, pulling her hand up, with water following.

Shu looked over then, his eyes blazing in anger.

"You just might die soon"


	2. Meeting and leaving

"You just might die soon."

I'd say that it all happened to fast, but I was used to it. So it didn't. With a flick of her wrist, Mr. Shu was struck and roughly shoved into the wall. Another flick, and the door was burst open.

"Go!" She yelled. I realized then that I'd been staring in shock, as well as the rest of the flock. Her voice snapped me out of it.

"Out the door and up and away!" I yelled. They listened without hesitation and in a moment we were out of the building, and into the fresh air. My wings snapped open, we were back in the air. I was surprised to see Kyra still with us. She flew close to us, as if debating on joining our formation. Her wings were as dark as Fang's, except hers had white on the tips.

I wasn't sure that I wanted her any closer though. Yeah, she'd saved us. But did that mean she could be trusted? I thought of Jeb, for years he was a father figure to me, now I didn't even know what to think of him.

"Maximum Ride." Kyra said the name aloud, almost like she was testing the name.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

She sighed. "You? Why did you have to be Maximum Ride?" She answered with a question.

"What does that mean?" I demanded. I wasn't going to lie, I was offended by what she'd said.

"Don't take offense," She said. "You just weren't who I was expecting to see. Or you for that matter." She gestured to Fang.

Fang raised an eyebrow. "Me?" he asked.

She nodded. "Do you realize that all three of us thought you were dead? Then I found out a couple years ago you were with Max. But by then it was kind of too late to go after you again. We gave up completely two weeks ago, and now here you are. That actually really annoys me." I wasn't sure if she was still talking to Fang or herself. Either way, it didn't make sense. Who was they? Why were they looking for Fang? I decided I officially didn't like her. She'd been trying to hunt us down.

"Would you mind explaining that?" Fang asked. Or demanded. I wasn't sure but I knew he was just as confused as I was.

"How old are you?" She changed the subject.

Fang was silent for a moment before finally answering. "Fifteen."

"I'm going to guess you've got…." She thought for a moment. "…….about a month left then. A month and a half tops."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded.

"Nothing nothing, I really shouldn't even still be here. I should just leave and come back when it happens. I should just forget about this meeting, and come back later. I should make sure you don't know anything- so it won't happen early-and tilt my wings so I'll go in a different direction. I should turn around right now, and get some decent food while I wait for everything you know to fall apart Fang, I should. But I'm not sure I will."

"If you want to have any chance of even staying near us, you'll tell us what you're talking about." I shouldn't have been getting so mad, but I had a temper. And somehow, I felt like she really knew what she was talking about.

Kyra turned towards Fang. "Maybe I will, maybe I won't. But first things first, do you remember me?" she asked him.

"I've never met you." Fang answered easily. Kyra sighed in frustration.

"How did you do that? With the water? It was so cool! Wasn't it Angel?" Nudge suddenly cut in.

"It was amazing." Angel sounded almost in awe of the girls powers.

She laughed lightly. "Amazing isn't really the word I'd use. And it's not something you could ever do." She said.

"Maybe someday I'll be able to do it." Angel sounded confident.

"No, you won't." I'm not entirely sure what emotion she said it with, but it got Angel to stop.

"Alright, back on subject. Are you going to tell us about your obsession with Fang with or not?" I asked.

She laughed. "I wouldn't call it an obsession. I was actually praying I wouldn't be the one to have to deal with this, since were opposites."

"There you go with the confusing people again." I said.

She chuckled. "Sorry."

That was when I saw the perfect place to stay for the night, and since it had been a long day, I figured we could stop now.

"Down to that cave! We're staying there tonight." I yelled and angled myself downwards. The flock- and Kyra- immediately followed my lead.

When we landed, I did I quick survey of our surroundings. The cave was surrounded by trees, and I saw no immediate threats. So I sat, and finally relaxed a little.

While watching Kyra like a hawk.

She really didn't do anything though. She lay in the grass around the cave, and didn't move. She wasn't asleep though, because her eyes were open, looking at the sky.

Fang took a seat next to me. "She's fine Max." he comforted. "Leave her be."

I shook my head. "I don't know she can be trusted."

"She's not trying to kill us." He reminded me.

"You don't know that."

"She saved us a few hours ago."

I paused. It was true.

"We'll watch her, I just don't think she's bad." Fang continued.

I sighed. "Fine." I agreed unwillingly. I'm not sure how long we sat there like that, I liked it though. A lot. Just sitting with Fang felt nice.

But all good things must come to an end, and that happened when Kyra stood and walked over to us.

"I'm not going to tell you." She said bluntly.

"And why not?" I asked only slightly angered.

"Because, if I make it happen to soon you're going to blame me for it. Just don't do anything stupid and don't try to look for information. Ok?" She didn't wait for a response before turning and disappearing into the trees.

"That made absolutely no sense." Iggy observed, sitting not from us.

"No it didn't." Fang agreed. "What now?" he directed the question at me.

I shrugged. "We do what she told us not to. Look for information and see if she really knows something, or is just insane."


	3. Far from normal

I shrugged. "We do what she told us not to. Look for information and see if she really knows something, or is just insane."

In all honesty, I wasn't sure exactly how I intended to come across this information. I knew her first name, and if she was anything like us, she wouldn't come up if we typed in into Google. But something about what she'd said stuck with me. Something that made me think she knew what she was talking about. And if that was true, I wanted to know about whatever it was before it happened to Fang.

I'd asked Fang again if he'd ever met her, but he denied ever even seeing her before. The possibility of him lying flashed through my mind, but I quickly squashed the idea. Fang wouldn't lie. Not to me.

"Max, we should put them to bed." Fang commented lightly as he appeared behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. I looked up, finally realizing that the sun had long left the sky.

"You're right." I agreed. Then in a louder voice; "Alright, time for bed, we'll head out in the morning." I told everyone.

"Max," Nudge whined. "Why can't we just stay here for a little while?"

"Because I said we're not." I answered, I wasn't really in the mood to argue with her. Not when I had Fang to worry about.

"Please?" She asked.

"No." The word came out slightly harsher than I intended, and it made Nudge back off. We stacked our fists the way we usually do, and everyone went off to bed, except me because I'd graciously decided to take first watch tonight.

_You really shouldn't be getting into this Max. She was serious when she said not to try and look for anything._ The Voice rang clearly in my head.

I gritted my teeth. Of course I had to look for it, it was important.

_What's important is that you and flock keep out of her business. _

Was the voice insane? Did it really think I was just going to back off? I couldn't back off, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

I could've sworn I heard the Voice sigh in defeat.

_If you really insist Max, there's an abandoned Itex building about 20 miles east of here. _It finally told me. I smiled. For once, the Voice came through for me.

The next morning was quiet. If you excluded Nudge's ranting. We easily found the Itex building the Voice had told me to go to, and found it empty.

"Alright Nudge." I smiled encouragingly to her as she approached the keypad on the outside door. She ran her fingers over it, closing her eyes briefly. Then, without missing a beat, her eyes opened and she punched in the correct code.

"Why is the security up if it's abandoned?" Gazzy asked. We all shrugged.

"Probably because they don't want random people looking into their research." Fang answered. I nodded in agreement.

Though we knew it was empty, we still walked cautiously through the halls. The place gave us all the chills, it brought back to many memories.

When we found a decent computer, Nudge quickly hacked it and we had access to everything.

"Alright, what am I looking up?" She asked.

"Er, try 'Kyra'." I suggested. She did. And the word wasn't found in the records.

"Maybe she made it all up." Angel offered, though no one believed her.

"Well, what else can we try?" I asked the Flock. They gave me blank looks. I was getting frustrated. I'd found a place to look her up, broke in, hacked in, and now I was missing the key word. Why me? I wondered not for the first time.

"Oh oh!" Nudge cut into my thoughts. "What did that Whitecoat call her back with Mr. Shu? You know, when we walked in and you were all mad, and we were all scared, and she was in the room thingy and it was right before she did the whole ice thingy and-"

"The Tsunami Project." Fang cut her off.

"That's it! I remember thinking that that's such a weird name for anything. I mean, would you want to be called 'The Tsunami Project'? That doesn't even sound like a human!"

"Nudge!" We cut her off.

"Oh, right." She muttered before turning back to the computer and typing in the name. We all turned to the screen as the page came up.

The picture was most definitely of Kyra and her arms and wings were spread. Her expression was emotionless, but if you looked in her eyes you could see a hint of pain.

"Well?" Iggy asked impatiently. "What's it say."

Fang read aloud: "The Tsunami Project, mutated to have control over water and excelled greatly at it. Project is the brains of the experiment, with the ability to think through every possibly and be ten steps ahead of the opponent.

"Tsunami, as the leader of the four Elemental Projects, was the first to disappear. The building was tricked, and the girl escaped. Search is still progressing, but no word has been found of her whereabouts." Fang finished the summary. "The rest is just details about her water and strategies." He said.

"Ok….what does this have to do with Fang then?" Iggy asked.

"Why am I not surprised?" We whipped around at the voice.

"Kyra." I said, half in relief, half in shock.

"Did you know this is the Itex building I escaped from? I was really hoping I'd never have to come back." She looked annoyed and angry. Mostly angry. "I suppose you being the infamous Maximum Ride, I should've made sure you couldn't do this, but I didn't really have time."

"Why is it so important? You really didn't want us to know what Itex made you for?" The Gasman asked curiously.

"I couldn't care less about you knowing. It's him you should worry about." She pointed to Fang.

"Why!?" I finally snapped. "Just what do you know about Fang that even he doesn't know!? Huh!? Tell us!" I yelled.

She sighed and walked to the computer, paying no attention to Nudge and she moved my girl out of her way. I looked over her shoulder as she typed in 'The Volcanic Project'. A page popped up without a picture. Kyra read the words aloud angrily, as if the words themselves were fowl. "The Volcanic Project, the most unstable. The project proved far too unstable to remain as was. It burned down first Itex building, and memory was erased deep enough that abilities of fire did not resurface. Subject never showed signs of remembering, though that in part is due to having nothing that could resurface memories." The bitterness in her voice was strong. "Fang, you are fire." She finished.

He stared. And stared. And then stared some more. "I'm….the project……with the fire……and……"He looked confused.

"Listen to me. Everything you've seen me do? That's kids stuff. But you already knew that, didn't you Hotthead?" Kyra said to Fang just as bitterly. "Didn't you always want to be the strongest of us? Didn't you challenge Twister? Wake up Hotthead!" He gasped at that, clutching his head in a death grip as he fell to his knees.

"Fang!" I yelled as ran up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. I quickly removed it though and looked down at my now burnt hand.

"Hmm.." Kyra mused. "A bit more of a reaction than I expected."

"What did you do to Fang!?" I demanded, clutching the front of her shirt.

She made a face and pried my fingers off of her as she spoke. "You think _I _did this? You were the one snooping when I told you not too!"

"You're the one who wouldn't stop speaking gibberish." I reminded.

"Whatever, what's done is done." Was her voice as grave as I thought it was?

"Ice princess?" Was the first thing out of Fangs mouth when he finally stopped screaming. He was staring at Kyra intently.

Her eyes narrowed. "Does that really have to be the first thing you remember about me?"

He chuckled. "Yup. That, and I haven't seen you in years." Wow. Long sentence from Fang.


End file.
